The flood of news stories from a country as large, diverse and strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But there needs to be a way to mark those which can’t be discussed in detail but which are too indicative of broader developments to ignore.

Consequently, Windows on Eurasia each week presents a selection of these other and typically neglected stories at the end of each week. This is the 98th such compilation, and it is again a double issue with 26 from Russia and 13 from Russia’s neighbors. Even then, it is far from complete, but perhaps one or more of these stories will prove of broader interest.

Finally, a St. Petersburg historian has called for limited lustration. He says that those who have served in the KGB or FSB should lose their rights to hold political office (news.mail.ru/society/3022262/).

4. Is Toilet Paper Again Going to Become a Deficit Good in Russia Today?

One commentator in Tatarstan says that Moscow has created a unique system, “unitary federalism,” one in which the country calls itself a federation but in fact is a unitary state (business-gazeta.ru/article/355943).

13. Moscow Doesn’t Want Western Observers at Zapad Exercise Lest They See Its Weaknesses, Golts Says

Aleksandr Golts, a leading independent Moscow military analyst, says that the reason Moscow doesn’t want Western observers at exercises like Zapad-2017 is that the Kremlin fears that they will see just how many problems its military is suffering from (golos-ameriki.ru/a/nato-concerned-about-west-2017/4000817.html).

20. Soviet ‘Detroit’ Dies in Sea of ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Alcohol.’

The city of Tavda in Sverdlovsk oblast, once known as “the Soviet Detroit,” is dying with its population taking refuge in the only things still left to it: “sex, drugs, and cheap alcohol” (theins.ru/obshestvo/68672).

21. Children of Immigrants Account for All the Increase in New Pupils in Russia

Moscow officials have celebrated an increase in the number of children entering school this year, but a close analysis shows that all of the increase came from children of immigrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus rather than from children of indigenous ethnic Russians (burckina-new.livejournal.com/802248.html).

22. Chinese Tourists Flood into Russia to Visit 1917 Revolution Sites

The centenary of the Bolshevik revolution is attracting thousands of Chinese tourists into Russia (ru/articles/17472/). Many of them are staying in illegal, unregistered hotels that Chinese firms have set up and act as if they own the places already (http://babr24.com/baik/?IDE=164281).

Some Russian commentators warn that there are now so many Chinese in the Russian Far East that Beijing could invoke Putin’s Crimean strategy to take the Russian Far East and parts of Siberia whenever it wants (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/9/1/261601/).

23. Rural Doctors and Teachers Rely to Internet to Keep Their Sanity

Newly-minted doctors and teachers who are given supplementary pay to work in rural portions of the Russian Federation say that the only thing that keeps them sane is the availability of Internet connectivity (ru/selected/entry/128391).

The clearest indication that the Internet is now a power in Russia is that central Russian television channels are changing their programming to respond to and even correspond with Internet media outlets, something the television networks earlier had been reluctant to do (fedpress.ru/news/77/policy/1847312).

25. Communists Picking Up Support from Disappointed Young

Young Russians, upset both by the closure of social lifts and the absence of social justice in their country, are turning to the CPRF and other communist groups, some observers suggest (rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/09/01/1643099.html).

26. Fulfilling the Plan: Road Built Right Through a House in Novosibirsk Oblast

The plan must be fulfilled, whatever the obstacles, at least among highway builders in Novosibirsk. There, the road builders simply destroyed half a house to put a road through without telling the absent residents who, on their return, discovered that they needed to set up a tent to have a place to sleep now that their house has been wrecked (amarok-man.livejournal.com/2431281.html#t33410353).

And 13 more from countries in Russia’s neighborhood:

1. More Bad News from ‘Big’ and ‘Little’ Zones in Russian-Occupied Crimea

2. Ever Fewer Russian Tourists Coming to Crimea

Moscow had expected that Russians would flock to Crimea and boost the economy there, but this year, tour operators say, visits to the Ukrainian peninsula are down 20 percent from the already low levels of a year ago (politsovet.ru/56374-turpotok-v-krym-upal-na-20.html).

4. Belarusians Demand KGB Archives be Opened

Hundreds of Belarusians staged a demonstration to demand that Minsk allow them access to the archives of the Soviet-era KGB so that they can learn the fate of their relatives under Stalin and other Soviet leaders (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/8/27/261021/).

Radio Free Europe has opened a new broadcasting facility in Lithuania to beam Belarusian language programming into Belarus (camarade.biz/node/26069).

In another linguistic development, the Moscow Patriarchate church in Minsk has released its first ever translation into Belarusian of the New Testament. There are already about a dozen others in circulation (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/9/1/261598/).

8. If Kazakhstan Doesn’t Federalize, It Will Suffer Fate of Ukraine, Russian Warns

A Russian commentator says that if Astana does not federalize Kazakhstan and give Russian areas autonomy, that country will suffer the fate of Ukraine, a reminder if one is needed that demands for federalization of countries neighboring Russia are a form of aggression in and of themselves (cont.ws/@grigmironov/695301).

Officials in the Uzbekistan capital are concerned that the spread of cellphones throughout the population could restrict the government’s operations because people will be able to use them to photograph actions that the authorities would prefer to keep hidden (ru/news.php?st=1504083060).

12. Tashkent, Bishkek Find Agreement on Borders Easy, on Enclaves Not So Much

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have made rapid progress on resolving their border dispute in the months since the death of Islam Karimov. They have not made much progress, however, on the far more difficult issue of what to do with the Uzbek enclaves within Kyrgyzstan. Failure to support Uzbeks there will offend not only those people but many Uzbeks in Uzbekistan (ru/cis/2017-08-28/5_7061_tashkent.html).

13. Tajikistan has Highest Birthrate and Only Family Planning Effort in Central Asia

Tajikistan continues to have the highest birthrate of any of the post-Soviet Central Asian countries and thus it is perhaps not surprising that it is the only state in Central Asia actively promoting family planning measures (caa-network.org/archives/10141).

Edited by: A. N.

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About the Source

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. He has served as director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn, and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. Earlier he has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Euromaidan Press republishes the work of Paul Goble with permission from his blog Windows on Eurasia.

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